6 ms·

>English has a phonetic alphabet after all, right? No, it doesn't - if it used IPA, it maybe would, but English has very inconsistent pronunciation for otherwi

>English has a phonetic alphabet after all, right? No, it doesn't - if it used IPA, it maybe would, but English has very inconsistent pronunciation for otherwise similar words written in Latin alphabet, a matter that many English native speakers seem to overlook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1edPxKqiptw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1edPxKqiptw

tines 4y ago
For an alphabet to be phonetic, it doesn't really matter how complex the rules are for the alphabet, just that the letters carry only phonetic meaning and no semantic meaning, right?
- tivert 4y ago
  > For an alphabet to be phonetic...just that the letters carry only phonetic meaning and no semantic meaning, right? Yes, exactly. If the English alphabet wasn't phonetic, it would be impossible to even try to "sound out" words. Everything would be pictograms or logograms (e.g. icons). English has a phonetic alphabet, but history and cultural contact* have made the phonics complicated and inconsistent, but it doesn't mean they aren't there. * Including the garbage practice of adopting foreign words with literally no spelling changes whatsoever, which in modern times has been taken to such ridiculous degrees as adopting Pinyin spellings in favor of other Chinese romanization systems that are more suited to English phonetics. Why write "ts" when you can write "c" and have every Englishspeaking person mispronounce it?
- phoe-krk 4y ago
  What phonetic meaning does the letter "h" carry when writing English? Especially with words like "honest" and "while". If adding a single letter at the end of a word changes the pronunciation of everything before it, it's not unlike adding a single stroke to a radical that changes the pronunciation of the whole kanji. In other words, if you need to read the whole word in order to know how to pronounce it (and there are plenty of English examples in the aforelinked video), then, by definition, you're not doing anything remotely phonetic.
  - michael_j_ward 4y ago
    Pointing out a few outliers in such a large system like the English Language and using them to justify reclassifying the entire thing is braindead.
    - phoe-krk 4y ago
      If that is the case, how would you describe the act of comparing English to languages which actually have consistent letter-phoneme pronunciation throughout the language (starting with e.g. the same number of available letters and phonemes and a 1:1 mapping between them)?
      - TRiG_Ireland 4y ago
        I would say that English has a greater level of orthographic depth than some other languages (but far less than, say, Thai).
      - rcoveson 4y ago
        Spanish is "strictly phonetic" English is "[very] loosely phonetic" Hieroglyphic systems are "non-phonetic"
        josefx 4y ago
        > Hieroglyphic systems are "non-phonetic" Wasn't there at least one that just encoded letters almost identical to the alphabet we use?
        wl 4y ago
        The Latin alphabet is ultimately derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs.
        wl 4y ago
        Egyptian hieroglyphs are, for the most part, phonetic.
        4y ago
michael_j_ward 4y ago
It's an alphabetic writing system where the letters largely correspond to sounds, in contrast to logographic writing system where the symbol corresponds to the entire word (like Chinese or Japan). Yes, there are special rules and outliers that you need to learn in English, but it seems absurd to not classify it as phonetic because it's not purely phonetic. This is doubly so when discussing phonetic vs whole-word learning systems, as is the topic with "Sold a Story".
- phoe-krk 4y ago
  > Yes, there are special rules and outliers that you need to learn in English (...) I think you're greatly understating it. It's most of English, it's present everywhere as you try to learn the language. It's present from the very beginning, when you need to figure out why "are" and "area" are not pronounced the same, until the very end, when you have mostly mastered the language but now need to be able to understand everyone else's pronunciation while also accounting for them most likely pronouncing some words incorrectly.
- oxfordmale 4y ago
  Japanese is phonetic, unlike English. In Japanese spelling is phonetic and pronunciation is consistent. Words sound like they look and look like they sound. Even someone who’s never studied Japanese before could read a text written in romaji and be understood without trouble (unlike someone studying French, for example).
  - taeric 4y ago
    Nit, Japanese has two phonetic alphabets. But, largely Japanese is not phonetic in written language, as they also have a logographic set which makes up a large portion of most texts.
- Taywee 4y ago
  English is highly non-phonemic. It's not absurd. If you considered English phonetic, you'd have to consider almost every modern language writing system phonetic. The distinction wouldn't mean much.
nkrisc 4y ago
English does use a phonetic script. The letters represent phonemes and carry no semantic meaning on their own, as opposed to an ideographic or logographic script. That fact that one symbol can possibly represent multiple phonemes doesn't make it not a phonetic script. There's no debate about it, unless you want to debate what makes a script "phonetic" in the first place.
- oxfordmale 4y ago
  English is not phonetic. We do not always say a word the same way we spell it, unlike for example Spanish. According to your definition all spoken languages are phonetic.
  - nkrisc 4y ago
    > > English has a phonetic alphabet after all, right? > No, it doesn't Yes, it does. This isn't about the language, it's about the script. English is written with a phonetic script. > According to your definition all spoken languages are phonetic. I said nothing about spoken languages in my comment.
    - phoe-krk 4y ago
      The fact that it uses Latin letters doesn't make it phonetic if the same letter consistently resolves to different phonemes or lack thereof, depending on its context.
      - mlyle 4y ago
        You may argue it's not a very good phonetic script, with all of the special cases present... But letters mostly represent sounds, unlike written languages where characters represent concepts. A computer program written with knowledge of a few dozen of the common special cases would pronounce >90% of English words correctly and be close on most of the rest, "cupboard" notwithstanding. Indeed, look at how well 80's-era speech to text did with this exact approach.
      - 4y ago
MisterTea 4y ago
You answered a rhetorical question.
- phoe-krk 4y ago
  Yep. Might have forgotten to add an implicit /s at the end of the original question.

tines 4y ago

For an alphabet to be phonetic, it doesn't really matter how complex the rules are for the alphabet, just that the letters carry only phonetic meaning and no semantic meaning, right?

tivert 4y ago
> For an alphabet to be phonetic...just that the letters carry only phonetic meaning and no semantic meaning, right? Yes, exactly. If the English alphabet wasn't phonetic, it would be impossible to even try to "sound out" words. Everything would be pictograms or logograms (e.g. icons). English has a phonetic alphabet, but history and cultural contact* have made the phonics complicated and inconsistent, but it doesn't mean they aren't there. * Including the garbage practice of adopting foreign words with literally no spelling changes whatsoever, which in modern times has been taken to such ridiculous degrees as adopting Pinyin spellings in favor of other Chinese romanization systems that are more suited to English phonetics. Why write "ts" when you can write "c" and have every Englishspeaking person mispronounce it?
phoe-krk 4y ago
What phonetic meaning does the letter "h" carry when writing English? Especially with words like "honest" and "while". If adding a single letter at the end of a word changes the pronunciation of everything before it, it's not unlike adding a single stroke to a radical that changes the pronunciation of the whole kanji. In other words, if you need to read the whole word in order to know how to pronounce it (and there are plenty of English examples in the aforelinked video), then, by definition, you're not doing anything remotely phonetic.
- michael_j_ward 4y ago
  Pointing out a few outliers in such a large system like the English Language and using them to justify reclassifying the entire thing is braindead.
  - phoe-krk 4y ago
    If that is the case, how would you describe the act of comparing English to languages which actually have consistent letter-phoneme pronunciation throughout the language (starting with e.g. the same number of available letters and phonemes and a 1:1 mapping between them)?
    - TRiG_Ireland 4y ago
      I would say that English has a greater level of orthographic depth than some other languages (but far less than, say, Thai).
    - rcoveson 4y ago
      Spanish is "strictly phonetic" English is "[very] loosely phonetic" Hieroglyphic systems are "non-phonetic"
      - josefx 4y ago
        > Hieroglyphic systems are "non-phonetic" Wasn't there at least one that just encoded letters almost identical to the alphabet we use?
        wl 4y ago
        The Latin alphabet is ultimately derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs.
      - wl 4y ago
        Egyptian hieroglyphs are, for the most part, phonetic.
      - 4y ago

michael_j_ward 4y ago

It's an alphabetic writing system where the letters largely correspond to sounds, in contrast to logographic writing system where the symbol corresponds to the entire word (like Chinese or Japan). Yes, there are special rules and outliers that you need to learn in English, but it seems absurd to not classify it as phonetic because it's not purely phonetic. This is doubly so when discussing phonetic vs whole-word learning systems, as is the topic with "Sold a Story".

phoe-krk 4y ago
> Yes, there are special rules and outliers that you need to learn in English (...) I think you're greatly understating it. It's most of English, it's present everywhere as you try to learn the language. It's present from the very beginning, when you need to figure out why "are" and "area" are not pronounced the same, until the very end, when you have mostly mastered the language but now need to be able to understand everyone else's pronunciation while also accounting for them most likely pronouncing some words incorrectly.
oxfordmale 4y ago
Japanese is phonetic, unlike English. In Japanese spelling is phonetic and pronunciation is consistent. Words sound like they look and look like they sound. Even someone who’s never studied Japanese before could read a text written in romaji and be understood without trouble (unlike someone studying French, for example).
- taeric 4y ago
  Nit, Japanese has two phonetic alphabets. But, largely Japanese is not phonetic in written language, as they also have a logographic set which makes up a large portion of most texts.
Taywee 4y ago
English is highly non-phonemic. It's not absurd. If you considered English phonetic, you'd have to consider almost every modern language writing system phonetic. The distinction wouldn't mean much.

nkrisc 4y ago

English does use a phonetic script. The letters represent phonemes and carry no semantic meaning on their own, as opposed to an ideographic or logographic script. That fact that one symbol can possibly represent multiple phonemes doesn't make it not a phonetic script. There's no debate about it, unless you want to debate what makes a script "phonetic" in the first place.

oxfordmale 4y ago
English is not phonetic. We do not always say a word the same way we spell it, unlike for example Spanish. According to your definition all spoken languages are phonetic.
- nkrisc 4y ago
  > > English has a phonetic alphabet after all, right? > No, it doesn't Yes, it does. This isn't about the language, it's about the script. English is written with a phonetic script. > According to your definition all spoken languages are phonetic. I said nothing about spoken languages in my comment.
  - phoe-krk 4y ago
    The fact that it uses Latin letters doesn't make it phonetic if the same letter consistently resolves to different phonemes or lack thereof, depending on its context.
    - mlyle 4y ago
      You may argue it's not a very good phonetic script, with all of the special cases present... But letters mostly represent sounds, unlike written languages where characters represent concepts. A computer program written with knowledge of a few dozen of the common special cases would pronounce >90% of English words correctly and be close on most of the rest, "cupboard" notwithstanding. Indeed, look at how well 80's-era speech to text did with this exact approach.
    - 4y ago

MisterTea 4y ago

You answered a rhetorical question.

phoe-krk 4y ago
Yep. Might have forgotten to add an implicit /s at the end of the original question.